The rapid growth and popularity of electronic mail (email) has also resulted in new uses for this form of communication. While originally email was primarily used for communicating between individuals or between corporations and their customers, it has now been adopted by other entities which have historically used more conventional modes of communication. For example, news sources and other entities which must communicate with extremely large numbers of people are now utilizing email as a means of communication and transferring data.
Conventional email distribution systems can encounter problems related to performance when attempting to send bulk quantities of email. Some systems may achieve their maximum attainable throughput while others may not. An email system's operating environment can play a part in determining the its performance. For example, connection times to other email systems may be slow, communication links between hops can be error prone, etc. What is needed is an email distribution system that can automatically react to environmental conditions to achieve the best attainable throughput.